Hereford Independent Student Broadcasting
Hereford Independent Student Broadcasting (AKA "The COW"-Independent Student Radio), was a wholly-owned subsidary of DJFM Industries Broadcasting Division, that attempted to provide a regular podcast student radio (then later TV) service to the students based in the Aylestone Hill area of Hereford. It was inspired, after a previous attempt run as part of the college, collapsed, despite signs of PR, under the former banner 'The COW' (most likely the name itself being inspired by the Hieffer breed of Bovine Cattle in the county), of which under a pledge to relaunch the station to give the opportunity to broadcast radio (& later TV content) "For The Students, By The Students". Under a shoestring budget & some voluntary assistance, it attempted to air on-demand podcast content via .wma & .wmv files via a freewebs domain using whatever equipment it could find, with whatever presenters could be found that wanted to provide mainly unsigned music & voice content on the station (along with anything that a student's personal budget could spare to provide for programmes). There was also a plan to provide these programmes on a cyclic basis via pre-recorded tape to common rooms within the college, however due to the lack of assistance from the Sixth Form, meant that this plan was quickly shelved (despite evidence of cases to distribute these programmes, including in the 'Bridge Cafe', surviving - see image right) Due to issues trying to secure both further funding & space, HISB had to utilise two quiet rooms, to the right of the entrance doors of the furtherst portacabin on the campus of the Sixth Form, known as the 'Chaplaincy Hut' or simply 'Hut 3' (see map righ). In one of 3 small sectioned rooms, became HISB's makeshift programming office. The distance of the radio station's make-shift office out from the main section of the campus, as well as no ethernet internet connection equipment in the office, meant that programme development, participation from the student body and the ability to make the station the life of what was going on day-to-day at the Sixth Form form a wide variety of angle, became virtually impossible. In addition, there was immediate resentment & misunderstanding, by both campus admin & youth-based local radio projects whenever the subject was broached, with no interest (presumably due to the feeder-university-led ciricculum) in providing extra-cirricular radio & TV programming opportunities (especially to a generation that was only just being introduced to online video platforms, especially youtube being launched on April 23rd 2005, about 6 months after the radio station's administration was established in september 2004). After a tense few months and realising that there would be very little assistance, understanding or advocacy to even launching such a service - decided upon a launch date of February 2005, with the new banner of "The COW - Hereford Independent Student Radio" (COW-HISR), that would (if successful) be aimed at students at the Tech College, the Art College, the Sixth Form & other local colleges in Herefordshire as a whole. The reformulation utilised the exclusive resources of DJFM Industries Broadcasting Division (as well as earlier successful experiments by DJFM Industries Records (Record Label) into high-quality audio compression & universally-available editing software via Windows Movie Maker). On the 3rd February 2005, COW-HISR, launched on http://thecowisr.freewebs.com, (with a station jingle, provided by local online radio engineer Brett Jenkins, who would later become Cheif Engineer of Xtreme Radio in Swansea University). The first programme that was to be recorded from a sound desk in the office, was meant to be a gathering of student presenters & topical guests in creative industries - but instead comprised of a roughly 20 minute banter programme, comprising station manager David Malins, station technician (and programme provider) Alec J Morris & studio guest James Harris from the band Southern Freeway. The recording was filled with a high pitched earth feedback loop hum that disrupted this maiden broadcast created by the impromptu equipment & recording issues that would mark the type of problems the station would come up against through it's life. Many more proposed programmes of both WMA encoded radio and WMV encoded video podcasts, would remain unissued, as difficulties at the colleges became ever-more tested - along with deliberate limiting by those outside the station to items that it could have covered (despite expansion by the station into those areas where it could demonstrate the use of such a network if it were supported properly, including a physics department rocket demonstration video that proved most popular, a '2 minute tour timelapse' starring Jon Williams (based upon the old BBC & British Rail London to Brighton timelapse video), two audio recordings of the college carol services of 2004 & 2005 (with an attempted CD release of the 2005 by DJFM Industries Records (Record Label) in order to help station operations for the whole student body), a Great Wars memorial service in the 'Zen Garden' and many more. Interest in the station gradually faded - bar a handful of programme providers whom had transitioned to the more efficient mp3 codec format and youtube. Many archived recordings towards the final active days of the station in september 2006, were either delayed or never released due to the increasing demands that had not been relieved, along with internal pressures at the college - Much of the lessons learnt from Hereford Independent Student Broadcasting (HISB), would be transferred to Glam TV (now Welsh Community Broadcasting Federation (WCBF) ) when DJFM Industries Broadcasting Division became a member in it's move to South Wales. Til about 2010, much of the website of HISB and it's archives were maintained as an online homage, with a hope of restarting using the new experiences & technology & contacts made. Unfortunately, this wasn't to be and the station ceased to be in the winter of 2010 and it's website becoming idle since then. DJFM Industries Archives Division, have attempted since then to restore much of the work done by the station, to show the heritage & growth during that time, with a documentary having been planned, but never completed due to the decade of austerity that hit it and the Democratic Commonwealth Union's communities in Britain since 2010 - which, combined with complex travel & logistics arrangements, severely impeded any progress made until recently. Notable Programmes & Recordings (in chronological order): # Recording 1: 17th Dec 2004 College Carol Service # Radio Cast 1: The Launch Podcast # Radio Cast 2: Introducing Radio MUM.... # Radio Cast 3: Randomn Banter with Simon & Alec # TV Cast 1: HSFC Physics Dept Bottle Rocket Experiments # TV Cast 2: '2 minute tour of HSFC' with Jon Williams # TV cast 3: 'Student Stress Relief: Running into a wall....' with Jon Williams # 11th Nov 2005 Rememberance Ceremony in 'Zen Garden' # 20th December 2005 College Carol Service (with assistance from Live Event Tech dept) # 2006 Leavers Day (famous for the holler of 'You know it makes sense!' halfway through) # Radio Cast 4 (28th Nov 2006): New Music with Sam Jarvis